


The Gentler Emotions

by paperowls



Category: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon-Compliant, Dream Sequence, F/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperowls/pseuds/paperowls
Summary: The Count dreams. When he wakes, he will wish it had been a nightmare.
Relationships: Edmond Dantès/Mercédès Mondego
Kudos: 5





	The Gentler Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> "[The Count] could not at once admit the feeling of pure and unmixed joy, but required a gradual succession of calm and gentle emotions to recieve full and perfect happiness, in the same manner as ordinary natures demand to be inured by degrees to the reception of strong or violent sensations."  
> \- The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
> 
> Sometimes you have better things to do in your life than sleep. Like have many emotions about one about two centuries old fictional character. At least I have something to show for my trouble.

In the dream, there is laughter. It echoes down cool stone walls and up sun-warm church pews, fragrant and fresh like the summer air. It is joined for the chorus by other voices, a whole crowd of laughs and shouts, and above them all the heavy metallic approval of the bells.

Everyone is there, though he cannot make them out through the hazy golden light. His neighbors, his friends, his men, his father. That his father is there he knows for sure. They are the audience to this happiness, a mirror to take his joy and reflect it back to him, magnified a thousandfold.

She is a vision. She is a beauty that is blinding, otherworldly, divine, too much for mortal man to behold. The details get lost in the light, but her dark hair and luminous eyes are clear as day, for they are what he thinks of when he thinks of her.

There are words said, and he knows them even though he cannot hear them, and they are said in her voice, and his, and the moment they say them the world goes still like a painting. He sees as if outside himself how their lips meet, but he can feel the warmth of her lips like the sun and the smell of her hair like the roses she carries. The crowd surges with cheers, and he is so large he could be all of them.

-

In the dream, there is love. Dark skin so soft is disappears under his touch, darker hair that curls around his forearms and fans out around her flushed features like a halo, eyes so bright they glow, even half-lidded with pleasure.

There are gasps and moans and laughter that skitters like sparks over his skin. Whispers that make him shiver and ache, cries that make him groan and shudder. Arms that wrap around him, that try to hold him firm and fast, but cannot keep the form they want and so they sink into him, or he sinks into her, or they sink into each other. It doesn’t matter how it happens because what happens is that for that moment there is no separation between them, no him and her, there is only them and what they are feeling and what they are feeling is a pleasure to bright it burns.

There has to be relief from this fire. Some moment the fuel is spent. But the more he stokes it, the hotter it burns. They are riding a wave that he could only imagine the size of, and now they are nearing shore, and it is still only growing. He chases the pleasure she gives him. Hunts down every scrap and morsel she has to offer. He takes her body with his own, mouth on her lips and her neck and breasts and hands on her hips and her hair and her head is thrown back and her lips are wide open and he tries to wrench from her the relief he can sense but is just out of reach.

That she is feeling the wave too is only spurring him on. Her deep gasps have quickened to sharp pants, and she rolls and surges with forces deeper and stronger than either of them. But it’s not enough. None of it is. If he presses bruises in her skin, if he bites her lip until it swells plump and red with blood, if he digs his nails into her and leaves long red welts on her ribs, if he ruins her in all the little ways one does for pleasure, then the marks are gone when he looks again. He is chasing a mirage, an illusion, an impossible dream he can do naught but wake, cold and wanting, from.

Then she looks him in the eyes and calls him by his name, and the wave crests in all its heaving golden pleasure and crashes through them both.

-

In the dream, there is a home. It’s his father’s apartments, or her fisherman’s hut, or a faceless room in their home city, or the cabin of his yacht, or any of the meaningless places he has ever laid his head to rest for the night. The layout is of no importance, that’s all outline and blur. What matters is that it is warm, streaked with sunlight, and smells of bread and sea and clematis out the windows.

There is a humming here. He walks the rooms, searching for it. She is somewhere in this place that is their home. He is still learning the ways around the place with all its gently curving lines, but she knows it like the swirls on her fingertips. The origin for the humming cannot be found, for it comes from everywhere.

Her voice is a part of the house now, has sunk into the walls, steeped the furniture in it, wriggled its way into every crack and nook and crevice and what once was dead stone and brick and wood will never stand cold again. He will come and go, but she will make this place hers in a way he could never touch. Her soul is a hearth, and he will never be lost and he will never be lonely and in all the ways that matter he will never be forgotten. He doesn’t need to look for her. Just because she isn’t seen doesn’t mean she isn’t here. He can settle down in an armchair and watch the clematis rustle in the window and just let the moment be.

-

In the dream, there is sky. Wide as the world and bright as his future. Not a cloud in sight but the white sails of the ship he stands on, feet planted and eyes on the horizon. They are moving forward.

There is a great clamoring of people at work, crashing waves on the wooden hull, the snapping of ropes going taut, and all of this he knows like a song he can sing by heart. All of this is his. By luck, by skill, by birthright, by nature. He is steady as a tree as the ship rolls, and he shouts orders to be obeyed promptly by his men, even as he can’t hear the words himself. They do as he says without a thought. They are of one mind, they are one organism of one purpose in this endeavor, and he has the privilege of acting the head of this glorious beast. He leads, because they know he can do it, and do it well.

There is only blue. A sky so saturated it burns, a sea just as wild and vibrant. Their tiny vessel is a speck on that endless expanse. The droplets of saltwater that hit his face are warm like summer rain. There is no land on the horizon yet, there is only him, the rolling plains of ocean and the distant dome of heaven. A promise of freedom, endless potential, an infinity of choices spread out before him, and a home he knows will be there for him once he wishes to return to solid ground. It is still there, somewhere in the distance, waiting for him, even though he cannot see it yet.

-

In the dream, there is a family. Three people turned father, mother, and grandfather, new roles assigned to old actors at the arrival of a new life into this world. A child he cannot see the face of, but knows down to the bone is his and hers.

A son, who is adventurous like his father, kind like his mother, and honorable like the both of them. Who will one day run laps around the garden with their dog; who will steal apples from their neighbor for a girl who can’t reach them; who will like to do a lot of things but will struggle to find out what he loves. Maybe he will go to sea, like his father. They would both like that.

Or a daughter, who is stubborn like her father, intuitive like her mother, and clever like the both of them. Who will within her first year of study surpass her mother in painting; who will blow out the candle when he checks that she’s sound asleep, only to go back to reading once he’s closed the door; who will turn away all the boys because no one can live up to her expectations. She had a very good father, she will say, and she won’t settle for anyone who can’t match him.

It is a life that is charmed in a house that is theirs, and he knows he leaves because he has to for his work, but he is also always home to watch his child or children grow.

-

A thunder of approval from people who aren’t important to the world at large, but nonetheless are distinguished and respected in the circles he moves in now. This is where his ambitions lead him. Right here, to this moment, to these local men looking at him as an equal.

He is receiving something. A reward, a title, a deed, an award, an honor. It is so small in his hands that it feels like nothing at all, but what it is doesn’t matter because he earned it with the sweat of his brow and the wits in his mind and the strength in his heart. The face of the man that gives it to him is the face of his old employer, smoothed out by time until only the most essential features remain. And this scrap of something must be worth it, because this man he respects so much looks so very proud of him for attaining it.

The room smells like fire. Like candle-smoke and tarred wood and smuggled cigars. It is such a small space. It is such a small honor. No one will even know he made it this far. No one but the people who matter. All this time, and this was all he needed. The storm has calmed, he can see land on the horizon. He can breathe easy. He has room to settle, now.

-

In the dream, there is peace. Birds are picking at seeds on the windowsill. She is knitting. He is reading. They are talking but all he hears is the murmur of their voices, like the humming that still echo from the walls.

There are seasons, seen at a distance. A sky white with snow, then pink with flower petals, then blue with open skies, then gray with fog. There is always time enough on the exhale. There is always space to stretch out his legs. There are always kisses, and quiet laughs, and sunlight lacing her lashes with gold in the morning.

Their child grows in the space between breaths; from a sweet toddler, to a cheerful child, to an impetuous youth, to a strong willed young adult, to a person he might call friend as well as his progeny. Maybe more children follow the first, it all runs together like watercolors, in a series of kind admonishments and heartfelt endearments.

And when the end comes, it comes for both of them at the same time. They have lived so long together that they have grown into each other, and it was no more than natural that they should exit the same way. Their child is there, with spouse and children of their own. He can see his eyes in the young ones; her smile. He and she will live on, in all the ways that matter.

The morning will take them both away.

-

In the cold pre-dawn light of reality the man who never again will be Edmond Dantès sits up in his opulent bed and clutches at his heart like he wishes to tear it from his chest. Huge, heaving gasps shake his body, as if he could expel the vision from his mind with the air he forces out.

Any nightmare, any pain, any torment, and there are many to find taking pride of place in his memory, would be better than this vision of gentle, alluring peace. He reaches for those horrors now, to hold the memory of the dream at bay. The stench, the starvation, the desperation. Pain strengthens him, suffering fortifies him, but this sudden onslaught of pleasure? This sweetness tastes more bitter than any poison on his tongue. This softness burns his skin more harshly than any fire set by hell. This kindness brings him to his knees like no recriminations ever could.

Already the specifics are fading from his mind, dissolving into the morning air.

That is for the best, he thinks. This pain is only harming him. He is scrambling like a desperate man to hold on to every scrap.

He wants for nothing, he thinks. This vision shouldn’t cling to him. He sobs because he can no longer remember if the child was a boy or a girl.

He has a sacred mission from Providence, he thinks. He wants no distractions. He begs for a moments sleep more, just to catch a glimpse of it again. (He dares not beg to stay forever.)

He is stronger than this feeble phantom, he thinks. He can overcome it. He is a weak, pathetic thing, reduced to yearning for the shadow of a vision of a life that never was.

He is better than this, he thinks.

He doesn’t deserve to have seen it.

It is beneath his notice.

He cannot stop thinking about it.

For three minutes this man sits with a knee pulled up to his chest and his long hair like a curtain between him and the world, and piece by piece he patches himself together from the wreck this dream had left him. He drags all the horror and death and fear and pain out from his mind once again. Eagerly picks at the glass shards that are his memory just to let the blood run down his fingers.

Three minutes is all he needs, and then The Count of Monte Cristo rises with a fluid grace, and heads out to face the day.


End file.
